Electricity in Ghosts
by DarlingDearestDeadForever
Summary: She supposed surviving and living were possible. Afterall, he did inject enough electricity into her to keep her alive lives over. Drabble series. Explores how Karin and Sasuke haunt each other.
1. Chapter 1

**#1: Love in 7 Moments **

Notes: AU

* * *

**1. Realization through Denial**

They met when she tripped. Yes, it was really such a cliché, their first introduction.

It wasn't love at first sight though, no. She was barely 16, nowhere near to the first quarter of her life, she wouldn't know love even if it slapped her repeatedly across her face.

But when he caught her, his warm hands suddenly touching her waist and she met with his eyes like black holes that sucked her in, it felt so damn _close_.

**2. Expression of Self**

He was an artist. He painted about their love. He depicted them on her skin, blooming flowers of blue, purple and grey, with specks of red from his rare kisses when he especially found her beautiful.

She was the perfect canvas: willing, pliant, submissive and utterly devoted. She took his flowers - the one he left on her flesh, because he never bought any real ones - and covered it, covered her. Only she has any right to see it.

But sometimes, she wished she wasn't the only one who _felt_ it.

**3. Luck on Sunny Days**

He never cared much for rain, or anything related to water really. So when times came where the sun sweltered and heat emanated in waves from almost everywhere, he would take her hand and grip it tightly in his own, and drag her outside. He would force her to take random, pointless walks around town and even further than that.

With the sun simulating how her life would be once she reached Hell and with sweat rolling down the nape of her neck into her clothes, she just gripped his hand back.

**4. Installing Electronic Appliances**

She was the techno-whiz in their relationship. So when time came that they had saved up enough money to buy a nicer TV, she was the one stuck on a lazy Sunday frustratingly trying to decipher the instructions on the instructional booklet and untangling years of neglected random wires.

After she finally managed to remove their old TV - taking a whole 2 hours due to said tangled wires - she stood up to get some water.

She of course bumped into him almost as soon as she stood up and turned towards the direction of their kitchen. Losing her wits, she screeched.

"Um, I got you orange juice?" Came his timid reply, explaining her suddenly soaked shirt.

**5. Communicating In Bed**

He was dominating, that's for sure. He was all exuding, overwhelming masculinity and passion concentrated in searing kisses and long, sweeping touches all across her body; lingering in his coal-black obsidian eyes and with his lips when he terrifies her in his enveloping tenderness.

He was demanding too, with his rough, shaky voice repeating over and over again so that she will never be able to reject him, deny him, or escape.

"_I love you."_

So that she will never be able to do anything but love him too.

**6. Trial through Terror**

By then, she knew well enough to stay quiet when he came home smelling like a distillery. She knew to make him a steaming hot cup of tea, 2 sugars no milk, and to go to sleep immediately after.

So while she was brewing his tea, she makes a mistake and idly touches the fading bruise on her left cheek.

She didn't have any dark intent, didn't mean to rub it on his face. It was just an honest gesture she recently took up as a habit, given how sore her face had been for the past few days. It was honestly more out of trying to comfort herself than punishing him.

His hand grabs hers in a flash and in her shock, she shoved the cup, its scalding contents making contact with his bare feet.

"I - I'm sorry, I didn't mean - "

By then, she knew that at that point would come his palm dead square with her face. She knew not to cry or hit back, even though her body never seemed to obey her brain during those times.

So it came as surprise when instead she found herself pressed against him. She had yet to relax into his embrace when he abruptly pulled away.

"I never make the same mistake twice."

**7. If This Was a Movie**

It's another sunny day. She is still thanking God that he's _still_ holding her while concurrently praying that he wouldn't stop. They end up at the neighbourhood park, sitting on a bench covered by big, maple trees and overlooking the town they lived in.

She doesn't care though because he suddenly wrenches his hand away.

She chooses to keep quiet, focusing her attention at the amazing view before her. She tries not to think about how empty her hand feels, how alone she feels even though he's less than half an arm's length away from her. She suddenly feels overly-conscious of herself and her empty hand so she brings it to her lap and closes it into a fist.

As if to mock her, he lays his hand back on the bench, in the space in between them, and gives her a small smile. She doesn't even think, her hand is already closing around his but upon feeling something small and hard pressing against her palm, she pulls back and looks down.

It looks like forever, she muses.

"Oh," she says rather stupidly as she just stares at him. His smile grows wider and right there, she has another thing to thank God for. Wordlessly, he puts in on for her. She barely registers the fact that he never even asked and she never even gave an answer.

"You said you wanted it to be like this," he says softly.

She shakes her head and watches his face fall immediately.

"I wanted _us_ to be like this," she explains

His distress turns into a mixture of relief and confusion and hesitant happiness.

"But I realized a long time ago that we're _better_."

* * *

- DarlingDearestDeadForever


	2. Chapter 2

#2: Mission

Notes: Supposedly after that ominous, deciding battle between Sasuke and Naruto

* * *

When it's all said and done and over, all he sees is _red_.

The gods are mocking him surely, because blood never looked so close to the shade of her hair before. Or maybe, her hair never looked like flowing blood before, like it did now as she laid on the ground dying.

He has half a mind to turn back to the dobe, and demand him why in _fuck's sake_ would he let his own relative - yes he knew - into the battlefield? What was all that 'protecting the ones you love' shit he preached when Karin was watering dead soil with her life?

But he spies his other ex-teammate with the blond and he knows his own place is with his present one - no matter how little said teammate probably believed. It takes him a while with his shaky steps but he finds her, her most striking feature as his guide.

She's spread-eagled and like a work of art on the muddy ground.

She reminds him of his family crest. Red against white. Her skin was scarily so, and suddenly he hates that damned fan with the remainder of his life because white on her doesn't look healthy.

'Ah fuck,' he muses. 'I think about health now out of all things and times?'

His musings are cut short when he's yanked to the ground hard. To his surprise, she's on top of him in a second, forcing her wrist to his mouth.

"You don't deserve it but I don't have a right to take away your life," she says angrily, as if unhappy with what she just said.

Pain slices through him. His next words come out beyond volition.

"And I just went ahead and stabbed you," he states.

They both freeze and the look on her face gets angrier. Calmly, he pushes away her arm from his mouth.

"You're dying," he states blankly.

"_So are you!"_ She responds without hesitation, once again extending her arm to him.

This times he takes it and brings it to his face slowly, all the while observing her reaction. Secretly, he's happy when she doesn't object because time isn't on his side and he has things he has to work out afterall.

"You said you'd follow," he murmurs to her skin, his lips brushing her flesh and electrocuting her in a completely different way than he last did. He starts to hear sniffling and looks downcast as she starts crying.

"I know what I said! But then you-"

He cuts her.

"_I told you I'd come for you!"_ It comes out far more urgent than he intends and he knows this because he's suddenly hacking up blood from the energy it took.

He slumps into her, completely drained of energy and probably everything else, and idly plays with her hair. He ignores the obvious panic in her expression as she tries to force him to take her wrist, to no avail.

It takes a while before she gets the message and the only way he knows is when she finally becomes still and quiet. He's also finally getting the sense of awning and that's when he knows he has to hurry up.

So he starts with the hardest part.

"I thought it was your blood," he started quietly, staring at her blood-soaked strands.

He ran his fingers through her hair gently, smiling.

"You're not dying afterall," he ends, and at this she breaks.

"When?" She choked, gripping his shoulders so they were face to face.

His vision is by then almost gone and the only thing he can make out is red.

His favourite colour.

He smiles and leans against her cheek. _He made it._

"See ya."

Her hair- now so vivid red with raw life - is the last thing he sees before it all goes black.

* * *

- DarlingDearestDeadForever


	3. Chapter 3

#3: Rest

Notes: Set right after Karin is discharged from the Konoha Hospital after being taken by Kakashi and Sakura

* * *

He comes to her in the form of a - suspiciously realistic - dream. It's exactly the day she gets discharged from the hospital.

Because apparently, she just had to die, and he was making sure.

"I knew she'd take you along," comes his voice. It's deeper than she remembers and possibly more strained, like he was weaker. Still, the effect was by no means diminished.

She is unconsciously gripping right above her left chest and he takes note.

"Sorry to disappoint." She meant to sound sarcastic, because sarcasm meant anger and anger meant strength and strength meant she didn't need him anymore.

Instead her voice comes out horribly quiet and even - for fuck's sake - disappointed.

"Hn." And he eyes her, practically examines her. She screws her eyes shut.

Panic. Panic. Panic.

She sees him raise a hand – that same one that ripped out her heart – and white hot electricity shoots up right into her scar and suddenly there is blood all over again.

In his eyes.

His face contorts in pain and confusion.

She flails around, hysteric in her fear as the lightning pierces her body and - "No! Get away from me!"

His hands freeze in mid-air and his face sets as stone. Quickly as he materialised from the darkness, he starts to fade.

Her screams immediately subdue and his mouth quirks, if only hesitantly.

He turns around and looks over his translucent shoulder.

"See ya…Karin."

Her eyes fly open.

Naruto is gripping her tightly at the arms, lower lip slightly bloody.

"You pack a mean punch, nee-chan!" He jokes as she realises she's finally awake.

* * *

- DarlingDearestDeadForever


	4. Chapter 4

#4: Wake

Notes: Related to #2, supposedly the aftermath

* * *

She doesn't know why she's here. In frustration, she runs a hand through her hair roughly and rubs her tired eyes. If she had the willpower, she'd be back in her cell, contently wasting her life away. Yet she's been in here for the past week, waiting for something to give.

"But this isn't a question of willpower, is it?" She asks him quietly, her hoarse voice ringing in the gravely silent room.

She scoots closer – as close as she can't get really – until she's sure he'd wake up anytime now. He'd wake up and tell her off, tell her to step away from his space. Surely, he wouldn't allow her to cling onto him like this, like some pathetic fangirl, and pretend to be fine with it.

"Wake up and tell me to go away," she almost pleads, but only almost because she reminds herself that this is the guy that impaled her with his katana like she was a rag doll – instead of a living human being, or his comrade that practically did every thing for him before he fucking tried to –

She's up and at the door before she knows it, the noise of the upturned chair barely registering to her. All she can do is control her ragged breathing and clutch her left chest in desperation as the electricity fades away.

She's gripping the doorknob and twisting it, pushing the door open when she hears it.

She walks back slowly, possessed and in a daze. Only maybe she ran because she's back by his side immediately. She doesn't really care though because -

It's unmistakable, that obsidian.

"You said you'd see me," she murmurs.

* * *

- DarlingDearestDeadForever


	5. Chapter 5

**#5: The Haze in Reality**

****A/N: Set after Sasuke is back at Konoha, probably after a few months into his...(I don't know what to call it) um rehabilitation back into society? Specifically, it's at a bar at night, located in one of the less savoury parts of Konoha meant for Shinobi to relax in. I mean with them practically killing for money or endangering their lives on a daily basis, I would suspect they lead darker lives than most and don't go for picnics or whatnot during their precious free time.

* * *

"Karin!"

She turns around abruptly, tensing at the frantic calling of her name but relaxing as soon as she spots the familiar blond and blue of her cousin.

She pauses, recognizing the solemn and determined expression on Naruto's face. Growling, she slams the sake bottle on the bar top, her haze from the alcohol fast disappearing and her problems fast slamming back into her face.

"Go away, Naruto," she growls. "I don't want to hear it."

She tries to stand and walk away, maybe disappear into the crowd of dancing and drunken shinobi who just want a break – like her - but he's already gripping her wrist tightly, forcibly rooting her seat.

"He's _sorry_ Karin. I know you don't believe that but-"

Revolt blooms in her blood and she grits her teeth in frustration.

"I_ know!_ I do! But that doesn't erase the _gaping scar on my chest_!" She exclaims so heatedly, so loudly that the whole bar seems to freeze for a while upon hearing her shrill, panicked voice.

Gruffly, she shoves Naruto away, cursing wonderfully in her head, begging the horribly blaring music to deafen her from the thoughts suddenly running wild in the confines of her mind, but – _damn it damn it_ - she's already riled up and she can't stop herself. She turns back suddenly to Naruto, bile already pouring out from her lips.

"Am I supposed to magically forget that he fucking stabbed me? Am I supposed to be comfortable around a _traitor_? Tell me why - why should I love someone like that? Is it my duty to love him just because _no one else will_?" She spits distastefully. She notices her cousin's eyes widening and victory sings within her because – finally – she hit him.

She waits for his reply, ignoring her stinging eyes, her ragged breath and the look of utter agony on Naruto's face.

"That's not true," he insists weakly, the energy he confronted her with gone.

She waits for something, something more _passionate_ from Naruto. Because this is Naruto and Sasuke and her afterall but when he doesn't say anything, she shakes her head and turns to walk away.

"You should consider," she says over her shoulder, "whether he even loved any of us at all, before you accuse us of not trying."

She sniffs, ignoring the tears running down her face, "Because you know how much we all tried. And you know how much he _didn't_."

* * *

A little hint of NaruSasu there haha, with the 'passionate' thing and the 'Naruto and Sasuke' part. Ah, couldn't help it, it adds to the dynamic of Sasukarin IMO.

- DarlingDearestDeadForever


	6. Chapter 6

**#6: Comparing sight**

A/N: Supposedly a few weeks after Sasuke's capture and imprisonment. There's something bothering him.

* * *

Her eyes stand out from a crowd like one would expect a sudden burst of light would. But they're nearly that bright, no, not even when her eyes are twin pools of fire. She knows it has something to do with him but she's been trying - especially recently - not to give him _too much_ credit.

His though, his are an abyss. Like wells of death, his obsidian eyes complete the image he has tried so hard to build: madness and grief.

Only, he probably sees clearer than she does. His sight is by far superior and this she cannot deny. When she was busy trying to save him, he was already past that and focused on using up the rest of his doomed life to do something he deemed useful - exact revenge.

Nevermind that his eyes have gotten cloudy in the time they've been apart. Nevermind that when she sees double, he probably sees blurs of unrecognisable colours. Sight has never been an issue with him like it is with her.

He knows - inexplicably knows - whereas she has always been blind.

"Karin," she hears.

Slowly, she gropes around to the edge of her cell that was right next to his. Her glasses, she found, distorted her sight more than it cleared.

When she reaches and wraps her hands around the rusting iron bars separating her from the monster that tried to kill him, she feels his claws.

She gasps.

They are remarkably soft. His hands were by far the smoothest things she had ever experienced. She can't help it, so she asks.

"How-?" When very clearly he has fought many battles, when even clearer he gripped his katana with such unbridled might as he brought it through her chest.

"I can't see you," he says and there is an unmistakable undercurrent of bitterness in his voice, and a prominent hint of regret.

His pained voice is what enthrals her to - against her better judgement - bring his face closer to hers with her own calloused hands. She peers into his eyes - so hazy with emotions she doesn't want to place.

And symptoms of early onset blindness.

She starts to cry.

"It's okay," she murmurs quietly, the pads of her thumbs brushing away the blood running down his cheeks.

"It hurts," he almost chokes.

"You've endured worse," she coos, forcing the bile back down her throat despite the sight of her bloodied hands.

Then she feels a brush against her lips. She freezes, but before she can properly realise what he just did, he begs.

He _begs_.

"I want to see you, Karin." Only his beg sounds mocking, almost as if his face was contorted into a half-sneer and half-smile but she wouldn't expect anything else.

She has already thought of this, prepared for this - as soon as she found out that _he_was going to be in the prison cell next to hers.

The kunai embeds itself into his heart from the back.

He coughs and she sobs, kissing him fervently before his body collapses backwards and away from her grasp.

The hysterical noises she makes alerts the ANBU stationed nearby and they are at a loss at the sight before them.

"Sasuke, I-!" She tries to start as she sees the ANBU lift him, about to rush him to the hospital.

He looks disgusting, haplessly thrown over an ANBU's shoulder like a rag doll, her kunai sticking out from his back like a protruding bone.

He lifts his head just barely and focus his eyes on her.

_"No! Stop it!"_ She screams because he is smiling. He is smiling like he was all those years ago.

If eyes are really the windows to one's soul then, Karin muses, Sasuke doesn't need them.

"You look pretty today, Karin." Sasuke whispers hoarsely, voice full of wistfulness as he ingrains the clearest image of her he has seen in a long time into his memory. He means to say more but blood is pooling into his mouth and he can barely make another sound.

So he just settles for smiling at her until they take him away from the light.

* * *

Hope you guys liked it!

- DarlingDearestDeadForever


	7. Chapter 7

A/N.: Because two wrongs don't make a right.

* * *

**Putting Out The Fire**

His hands come winding up her arm until they come to a stop, the rough pads of his fingertips gripping the suddenly-sensitive flesh of her upper arms. His voice comes above the din of rampant thoughts in her head, it's barely a whisper but his words are strong and electrifying.

"There's really nothing that I can say because I'm just a little too close to loving you and you're just a little bit _far_ beyond what I deserve."

He watches for her reaction and she hates it, she feels like one of the countless living experiments she observed indifferently. She screams at him to let her go but he only holds on tighter.

"_This is the only time you've ever wanted to hold me."_

His thumbs are slowly rubbing circles into her flesh and truly, she has caught fire. His eyes, ebony and bottomless, keep her in a trance, unable to move so that she continues to burn.

"I could ask for your forgiveness, I could change and be better, be _good_. But neither of us can forget, and when we go to sleep each night and I hold you tightly because I'm scared you'll leave me, I'll know that neither of us can pretend either."

As if once wasn't enough.

"So tell me now, can I just love you from afar?"

* * *

- DarlingDearestDeadForever


	8. Chapter 8

A/N.: AU

* * *

**Use Somebody**

Once again, Karin gets invited to play The Game.

That's how she finds herself standing in front of the imposing, ivy-covered brick mansion just outside of the town circle.

She cancelled her date with Suigetsu for this, but she was looking for a reason to, anyway.

Before she reaches out for the antique brass knocker, she considers the heavy mahogany door in front of her, iron bolts framing both edges. She looks over her shoulder and eyes the cast-iron fence, those sharp arrow-tipped bars.

Karin snorts, "Homey."

She slams the gargoyle head hard against the massive wooden door in her signature 4-knock rapt. It's a while before she hears the muffled thuds of footsteps approaching the door and again some before the door is swung open. Her prepared smile falters when she comes face to face with _him_.

And his bared chest.

"It's not pretty, your face."

Her head snaps up at his snark comment, cheeks reddening. Her eyes narrow as she ignores his greeting, she steps past him and into his mansion. She eyes the magnificent spiral staircase that greets her as she enters and climbs it halfway before she turns back to him, still leaning on his doorway.

"You found it enough though, you're the one who invited me afterall," she replied as an afterthought, giving him a triumphant smirk.

She's about to continue walking up the stairs when he shouts after her.

"I never said it was ugly. Or that you aren't enough."

Karin's grin falters and she turns back to face him, confusion replacing her smug appearance.

"But to be fair, I never said I wanted anything from you either."

She takes a step down. And then another, slowly, until she has his attention, until she can feel his coal-black eyes burning into her.

"You don't have to want something to take it," she whispers mostly to herself but of course he hears, and moves towards her.

His steps are deliberate, and the pronounced echoes of his stead reverberate throughout the house, making it painfully clear to her how empty his home was.

He has a smug grin on his face that she can't help but want to rub off with sandpaper, "I don't have to take when I'll be handed anything readily."

Her face contorts in anger. "You lack reality," she spits distastefully.

He laughs as he walks up right until he's just one step below her. With his height, they're now nose to nose and she can feel his warm breath fan her face.

Karin suddenly felt giddy.

He wags a finger at her, like as if she was a child, "I invited you to _play_."

"I don't play with _losers_," she mocks.

He chuckles, idly brushing against the lapels of his jacket before he answers, "I've never."

"I find that hard to believe," she sneers, irritated by his oh-so-casual attitude towards their situation.

He doesn't reply at this so she continues heatedly, "You just did, you just lost, how can you deny it right to my face?"

A confused expression overcomes his face and his reply this time is immediate.

"How? _How_ did I lose?" His voice is hard and imposing. She has to fight hard against the urge to flinch.

She takes her time to come up with an answer. She takes in his form. Tall, fit and graceful. The physique of an athlete with the air of an aristocrat. She examines his features. Jet black hair, even darker eyes, a sharp nose, pink lips and an impressively strong jaw.

Her lips tug upwards as she remembers; Lucifer was the most beautiful of all angels.

She leans in until her lips brush his (she tries to ignore the little electric shocks the go through her because the ball is in her court for once and she wants so badly to win this time) and murmurs in a mournful voice.

"On days like this with our moments like these, I ask myself the very same thing and I never get the answer I want, or even one at all."

She pulls away and turns her eyes toward the prominent blue-grey bloom on his left cheek.

"He didn't mean it, Naruto loves you very much and he's distraught in his self-pity," she says curtly before finally walking down the damned staircase.

She walks out the house before her cousin's husband can reply.

* * *

So…an established NaruSasu, with Karin playing the mediator once again when they have yet another fight that resulted in Sasuke leaving. Hints of SuiKa haha for a good ol' love square. ;)

Hope you guys liked it!

- DarlingDearestDeadForever


	9. Chapter 9

A/N.: AU, mentions of sex, switching of POV

* * *

**Cafuné **_(Brazilian Portuguese): The act of tenderly running your fingers through someone's hair._

She lets her eyes flutter close, feeling his fingers weave themselves into her hair. His touch was different this time. Light, gentle and almost caressing. Slowly, she breathes in, somehow trying to inhale the tender atmosphere that she rarely found herself in.

An arm snakes around her waist and she instinctively stiffens at the sudden contact of his skin on hers but she quickly gains back her calm, praying he didn't notice. The arm is warm against her belly, heating her up like a furnace.

His hotter breath is against her cheek when she hears his voice break the silence she just noticed was there.

"That was _amazing_."

Her heart palpitates and she swallows before looking over her shoulder and giving him a lazy smile.

"You said 100 right?"

* * *

He looks down at her but all he can see is her hair, the rest of her face lost to him. He looks down and sees an expanse of creamy, soft skin. Her back is probably the most erotic thing he's ever seen.

He considers her hair again. Under the warm amber light from the bedside table lamp, her hair is a deep auburn with glints of deep russet and copper. Like _fire_. He observes how her hair curls slightly at the edges, like wisps of fine silk ribbon. He decides there and then that her hair is more beautiful than Sakura's. _Definitely._  
_  
_Before he can help himself, he reaches for her hair. He tangles his fingers with it, muses how they now share an intimacy that she can't deny it. Vaguely, he remembers a word his professor mentioned in his Creative Writing class, _Cafuné_.

As he marvels at the softness of her hair, of her, he awes himself with the fact that they fit.

Suddenly, he has an urge to touch her all over again, even though just minutes ago, he was doing so much _more_ than just merely touching her. Just a few minutes ago, he and her, they were practically fused. He and Sakura were never that close. He and Sakura never _fused_.  
He loops an arm over her waist and grips her tight, bringing her into the curve of his body, until he could feel her whole back pressed up against him. The heat is unbearable and it quickly pools below his abdomen.

'This is too poetic,' he wonders as he leans in.

He can smell a faint flowery fragrance waft from her hair, and then her spicy, musky sweat. It was never poetic with Sakura. Sakura never smelled so enticing, she always smelled like baked apples and cinnamon, never sultry flowers that knocked him off his feet.

"That was amazing," he whispers to her sweetly. She turns and smiles. The warmth between his legs burn into a blaze.

'Well, now that I've been polite,' he thinks idly, still smiling at the woman he'd just had sex with.

"You said 100 right?"

He watches as the girl's face falls for a fraction of a second before she stands up all of a sudden and gives him a sharp nod.

He gets out of the bed and silently curses the low-class lighting, making the seedy mote; room they were in all the more seedy.

He finds his boxers and pants, hands over a bill to the girl. Wordlessly, the girl leaves, slamming the door shut.

He sits back down, is halfway through putting on his pants before he hears something fall onto the greasy tile flooring.

He sees it and _ah_, he remembers.

He never liked cheap floral perfume. He never cared for poetry and being knocked off his feet.

He picks up the diamond ring and cries.

* * *

A/N.: Karin is a prostitute yearning for intimacy and romance, something heavily hypocritical given her choice of a 'career'.

Sasuke is her current client. After the break in between the story, it switches to his POV.

He's a writer, or a writer-to-be, thus he over sensualises – with his very flowery and sentimentalist perception - what is ultimately just a paid fuck. But actually he's just deluding himself, something he realises in the end once he sees the engagement ring Sakura gave back to him.

Established (but broken) SasuSaku

Hope you guys liked it!

-DarlingDearestDeadForever


	10. Chapter 10

A/N.: Set in the Narutoverse, a few years into the future with Sasuke back and alive and with Karin. Might be a little bit OOC.

* * *

**This Bond**

There is violence in Beauty.

And then, there is beauty in Violence.

I've always wondered: Which one is more disturbing? Which answer is more startling?

As we come into contact – hot, heavy hand on rosy, round cheek and sharp elbow into fragile face – do you think of me? Do you think of the skin you're puncturing, the arm you're bruising, the ribs you're breaking?

As we fall down on downy sheets splattered with blood (yours or mine?) and settle into an air rife with tension _and_passion, do you think of yourself? Do you think of your black eye, your fractured wrist, your swollen forehead?

As you and I separate, stand, and face each other on either sides of the bed, mouths frothing with unbridled anger, hair askew and fists clenched, do you think of us? Do you think of why we're angry, why we ache and hurt and what we've done to each other?

I honestly _don't_.

All I know is – as I glare at you with a heat that could rival the sun's, the scratch marks running down your forearms suddenly look like pathways of glittering rubies, and the bruises on my legs suddenly resemble pools of sapphire – we are beautiful like this.

Don't you think so?

_Then_ I feel the pain from my red cheek, _then_ I feel the soreness of my arm, _then_ I see how you cringe when you try to move your left hand, notice you flinch when you accidentally brush your eye – and I can't believe you _fucking_ laid a hand on me. I can't believe I laid a hand on you _back_.

I can't believe we let ourselves do that to each other, again.

Then when we're spent and tired and you leave the room, I start crying because you're not crying in the next room, and this means I am the only one crying, and that means you're still stronger afterall.

And I want to scream at you to come back and sooth my stinging emotions but how can I? You're both the pain and the relief, so if I call you to come back through our bedroom door, which one will you be?

When you walk back in and sit beside me and try to touch me and comfort me, which one will _I_be?

Us back together: what will we be?

Is this _because_ we swore never to love each other or is this _why_ we swore never to love each other?

You're already pressing your lips to my temple with such tenderness that hurts more than the time you stabbed me.

"Do you want to stop?" You ask. Your voice is grave, low, hollow, and shaky.

I nod.

This is enough. I already tried.

You bring your lips to my ear and whisper something.

I laugh, with tears streaming down my face.

Once again, you say goodbye to me with a knife through my heart.

"I love you too, Sasuke."

* * *

A/N.: Dramatic haha? My idea was that they end up together because they have nobody else. There's really nobody else, when you think about it, that will understand them like the way each other does. You'd think that's enough and it's all gonna be happy but they're damaged afterall, and neither are good with 'I love you'.

Hope you guys liked it!

-DarlingDearestDeadForever


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